Air Force's chief of staff urges integration

MONTGOMERY, Ala.'The Air Force's chief today told his systems underlings to stop acting like members of a tribe and more like members of an integrated team.

The trouble with tribal thinking is it leads to "jealousy over programs and platforms. Too few of us are about integration," chief of staff Gen. John Jumper told assembled Air Force IT employees at the annual Air Force IT Conference.

Jumper said the service's various programs spend too much time distinguishing the difference between an intelligence platform and weapons or firepower delivery systems, when in may cases they should be one and the same thing. That would save time and confusion between becoming aware of a target and killing it, he said.

For airborne crews, "there can be no Web searches. There are no hourglasses up there," he said, referring to the screen icon that indicates a computer is processing data.

The Air Force needs more programs like one in which laser homing data is delivered to an A-10 attack aircraft, Jumper said. That, he said, "is like cats and dogs living together."

Similarly, sensor and other command and control data needs to be integrated on aerial tankers because, despite their narrow specific function, they are always present in battle.

The focus of data integration, Jumper said, should be to give all platforms a "find, fix, track, target, assign, exchange and assess" capability.